He did not slow. The mutants were hunting him, and would track him until they caught him.
He angled away from where he had left Aphen and Arling, working his way through the trees while seeking a place to set an ambush. He had to find something quickly, because he suspected his hunters were much stronger and their endurance greater. He did not think for a moment that anything would turn them aside or draw their attention away from him. They would keep coming until he was dead.
He wondered about the origin of the things. He didn’t give a second thought to the possibility that they were creatures native to the region; the Elves would have encountered something this big and dangerous before now. Most likely they had come from the Federation warship, which suggested strongly they must have been brought along for the express purpose of hunting Aphen and Arling and had only focused on him when he attacked them. But who would want to do this? Who would be desperate enough to go to this much trouble to hunt down a pair of young women? Probably the same people who were behind the earlier attacks in Arborlon. Were they seeking to steal the blue Elfstones, or was there something more involved?
Without slowing, he vaulted into a tree whose branches were sufficiently low hanging that he could swing himself quickly into the cover of the foliage. He climbed from there—a rapid ascent that took him well into the forest canopy—and then he leapt to a second tree and from there to a third, their branches all closely linked. When he reached the third tree, he settled back to wait.
The mutants charged past moments later, still following his scent. But in their efforts to overtake him quickly, they were past his hiding place before they realized they had lost him. By then, he was back on the ground and coming on them from behind, a pair of long knives drawn. He heard them thrashing about just ahead, then suddenly they went silent.
Instantly he froze in place. There was no sound from ahead—or from any other direction.
They were waiting on him, he thought. They had realized what he was about and set an ambush. He hesitated, undecided. Going forward risked becoming trapped between them. Waiting risked losing any advantage he had gained.
He was still debating when he heard fresh sounds at his back—a slow creeping approach by someone coming up from behind.
No longer certain what was happening, he eased backward into the heavy brush, squirmed into a shallow depression amid the grasses, and settled down to wait.
Stoon was almost into the clearing before he sensed the other’s presence. It wasn’t smell or sound or movement that alerted him; it was instinct. He could feel the other—a kind of tingling of his nerve ends, warning him that someone was lying in wait. He stopped where he was and dropped into a crouch, making himself as small as he could manage and going completely still, wondering if it was too late, if he had been seen, if he was already a dead man. In this cat-and-mouse game, had he become the mouse?
But moments passed and nothing happened. So he began the process of discovering where his adversary was hiding. There was no question as to who it was. It was one of those his creatures were hunting—probably the women’s protector, the one with all the hunting and tracking skills, who was hiding just ahead of him. He tried to imagine what sort of cover the other would choose, how he would go about concealing himself, and what he was attempting to accomplish. He wondered, as well, where the remaining two mutants had gone. Surely they weren’t dead. If they were, he should turn around and get out of there as swiftly and silently as he could manage.
He put his senses to work, trying to gain some scrap of information, some clue as to what was happening.
Nothing.
He stayed where he was. Moving ahead now was suicide. If his adversary didn’t already know he was there—something he highly doubted—he would certainly know the moment Stoon moved even a few paces toward the break in the trees. This hunt had become a waiting game, and no one was better at waiting than Stoon. The advantage would go his way so long as he kept still and didn’t panic. If the Elf tried to move at this juncture, Stoon would hear him and know where he was. And that would be the end of this standoff.
But everything remained quiet. Suddenly there was a change in the light just off to his left—a slight drift of darkness in the dim haze light that appeared and faded in less than a second. It might have been the mist, but Stoon didn’t think so. He tightened his grip on his knife, which he held down by his side, ready for use. He shifted his eyes ever so slightly toward the change, holding the rest of his body perfectly still as he did so. There it was again, that small darkening. Its source came from somewhere back in the trees—a slight shading that, once again, might have been nothing more than the movement of the mist.
Stoon tensed for the expected attack, knife ready to slash upward and then cut down, eviscerating whatever came at him. He would have to be quick. He would have to be …
A second movement caught his eye, this one coming from the other side. It wasn’t a change in the light this time, but a movement of the brush that was windless and otherwise still. Something else was back there, and he was caught between them.
He stayed frozen in place a moment longer, trying to judge whether it was best to ease farther backward or bolt forward toward freedom and fresh cover. He chose the latter, pressing himself even closer to the ground as he scooted slowly, silently back into the trees, eyes shifting left and right, trying to see everywhere at once.
But again, nothing revealed itself, and no sounds broke the stillness. He felt the heat of his anger rising in response to his frustration. He was going to put an end to this nonsense. He was finished with all of them—mutants and Elves alike—and they would all be dead and buried before he was done with this business and on his way back to Arishaig and his old life.
He was almost to the thickest of the shadows that clustered behind him when a sudden hush, a stilling of the air, made him pause.
Something was about to happen.
Cymrian was flattened against the earth, ready to spring up and attack, when everything abruptly went quiet. His hunters had sensed his presence. He waited several minutes to make certain they had quit advancing, and when there were still no further noises or hints of movement, he decided not to wait any longer. Staying low to the ground, he began to inch his way backward into the trees, having already chosen a position that would be difficult for a pursuer to reach without becoming exposed. He assumed this would not be something his hunters would want to risk, so he kept retreating until he was completely layered in shadow, the mist so thick that it hung directly over him in an impenetrable blanket. He could see nothing of what was out there, but was content to rely on his other senses as he waited to see what would happen.
Then something moved off to his other side—a second presence, very likely one of the creatures he had been tracking earlier. The momentary sound of its approach was so faint, he almost missed hearing it—the barest scrape of a passage through dry leaves. He froze, but the sound was lost in the heavy brume, its exact location impossible to pinpoint. The most he could determine was that it was off to his right, while the earlier sound had come from his left. He was caught between two stalkers, and he could not be certain how close either was.
Give her whatever time you can, he told himself, thinking of Aphenglow. At least enough time to save Arling.
He knew he was in trouble. There were at least three of them, two of them mutants, the other an unknown. Good odds if the latter was a normal man, even one possessing skill and experience. Bad odds if he was subhuman or worse. He had to assume the latter, having seen close-up the mutant he had killed. He had been lucky with that one. He had caught it unawares and dispatched it quickly, but he could not expect such luck a second time. With creatures of this sort, all it took was a single mistake and they would have you.